


An Interview

by Evilpixie



Category: DCU, Superman - All Media Types
Genre: Acceptance, Bittersweet, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Growing Old Together, M/M, Old Age, Past Character Death, Sad and Happy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-24
Updated: 2016-01-24
Packaged: 2018-05-16 02:04:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5809288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Evilpixie/pseuds/Evilpixie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The year is 2316. Lorrie Lane, investigative journalist, has just scored the interview of the year. A tell all exclusive with the aging and reclusive Superman.</p>
            </blockquote>





	An Interview

Lorrie was nervous. She told herself she wasn’t. She told herself she was excited. _Buzzing_ , her inner writer selected the word. She was _buzzing_ with professionalism and curiosity. The two most important things for any investigative reporter to have. Together they were a potent mix and could well be responsible for the stone in her throat and the air in her stomach. That’s what she told herself, anyway. That’s what she willed herself to believe.

 

But despite it she could feel the unmistakable flutter inside her.

 

Butterflies. She had butterflies.

 

After ten years in the business she had butterflies.

 

She was sitting across the table from Superman and had butterflies. A five year old meeting Santa for the first time.

 

“I… eh…” she cleared her throat and checked her recorder. It was fine just like the last time she checked, and the time before. “Thank you for agreeing to this interview, Superman. I know it’s not something you do anymore.”

 

The hero looked at her. Blue eyes vivid under silver hair. “Isn’t it?”

 

She blinked. “Um, well, no.”

 

He didn’t say anything.

 

“You haven’t sat down with anyone for an official interview in...” Lorrie thought for a moment, “…decades. Not since the Central City Crisis.”

 

“How long ago was that?”

 

“I… well… I wasn’t born then,” she confessed. “Forty years?”

 

“Has it been that long?”

 

“I believe so…”

 

The man looked thoughtful. “I suppose it has.” A deep sigh. “I’ve been meaning to. These things… they seem less important when you get to my age. But I got your message and, well,” a private smile, “it has been a while since a Ms Lane from The Daily Planet asked me for an exclusive. I didn’t think people were interested in me anymore.”

 

“You’re like bellbottom jeans. You come and go out of fashion.” She said the words without thinking.

 

To her relief Superman laughed.

 

“I suppose that’s true.”

 

She smiled, fiddled with her recorder some more, and set it down on the table between them. It was small and black. Like a marble with a flat base. Something that would record both audio and vision without interrupting the quiet atmosphere.

 

They were sitting in a local pub. In a private room she had booked out for their talk. It was the last place people would expect to find them and she didn’t think they would be bothered by superhero paparazzi hanging around outside.

 

It also had a balcony. She had expected him to arrive there. Instead he walked in the front door in a trench coat. His bright boots and pants weren’t so strange fashion wise now days to draw much attention without the shield and cape.

 

She felt childishly disappointed that she didn’t get to see him ease out of the sky like in all the old stock footage.

 

“Since it has been so long since your last interview I hope you don’t mind if we go back to the basics?”

 

He inclined his head in agreement.

 

“Your superpowers,” she said. “Ice breath. Heat vision. Flight. Strength.”

 

He studied her. “Yes?”

 

“Have they changed?”

 

He didn’t say anything at first. Then… “A little.”

 

She bit back a sting of excitement. “How so?”

 

“I would rather not say.”

 

“But…”

 

“During my very first interview I told your predecessor all my powers,” Superman said slowly. Gently. “All my weaknesses that I had known at the time. It was a mistake to broadcast my abilities. I learnt that the hard way.” He looked down at the recorder between them. “I will say this. As I get older and absorb more solar radiation I learn more about myself, my powers, and my limits. Occasionally I also develop new powers but more often I just get more sensitivity to the powers I have. More control. Most people think the stronger I am the more likely I am to accidentally rip open the world but the opposite is true. The stronger I get the more sensitive I get to that power.” He frowned. “I can feel atoms now.”

 

She stared. “You can _feel_ atoms?”

 

Without looking up. “Yes.”

 

“I… eh…” she wasn’t prepared for this. “What do they feel like?”

 

“Solid,” he said. “If I concentrate I can feel the movement of electrons but that’s only if I think about it or if I watch them move.”

 

“If you _watch_ them?”

 

Another nod. “Atoms are strange things to watch.  They don’t look like we depict them in the media. Some look different than others even when they’re the same element. The shape of them is different too. The electrons are smaller and a long way away from the protons.”

 

She stared at him and tried to imagine the atoms that made up his face. Tried to imagine being able to see them while also being aware of the person they were a part of. Tried to add to that the understanding that while he could feel electrons he could also bench press skyscrapers. Probably one handed.

 

She understood it… but she wasn’t sure she comprehended it.

 

“So, apart from atoms have you been seeing anyone?”

 

Superman blinked and looked up from the recorder in genuine surprise.

 

She felt proud of herself at winning such a reaction.

 

“You’re asking about my love life?”

 

“I am.”

 

A small smile. “You’re just like her.”

 

“Who?”

 

“The first Ms Lane. The one that worked for the Daily Planet three hundred years ago.”

 

“No relation,” she promised.

 

His smile didn’t slip. “I find that hard to believe, Ms Lane.”

 

“You didn’t answer the question,” she reminded him.

 

“I’m not seeing anyone,” he promised. “There are not a lot of people around who are in my age bracket anymore.”

 

“You look like you’re in your sixties,” she said.

 

“I don’t feel like I’m sixty. Sixty year olds are… children. It wouldn’t be right.”

 

“How long ago…?” It was a confrontational question. Probably not the best one to pose after Superman’s long absence from media spotlight. But she felt compelled to ask not just because it would get views – people always loved gossip – but because she felt like it was something she needed to know. Or, perhaps, something he needed to say. He looked more far away now than when he was looking at the recorder talking about atoms.

 

“My last love…” the man pursed his lips. “I suppose it could bring no harm talking about it now.”

 

“Was it…?”

 

“It was Wonder Woman.”

 

She stared. “ _Wonder Woman?_ ” She’d seen the pictures. She’d read the history books. Wonder Woman felt about as real to her as Martha Washington. A figure of immense controversy and yet one that still inspired women today.

 

She’d died over a hundred years ago.

 

“We clashed in our youth,” the man said. “But by the time we were old and our other partners were gone… it was comfort I think. I loved her, but it was comfort more than anything else. She remembered everything. The start of the Justice League. The first alien invasion. The dawn of superheroes.” He smiled fondly. “It was good to be able to be with someone who could talk about all that. Who could talk about Hal Jordan and not be talking about the legendary Green Lantern. Or remember changing costumes in phone booths. Or what it was like to fly before the sky was filled with hover cars.”

 

She stared. That was it. That was all she needed to make tomorrow’s headline. A puff piece, sure, but one a lot of people would pay through the nose to read. After all these years it was finally confirmed; Superman and Wonder Woman _were_ a couple… even if it was later than everyone imagined.

 

But she could tell that wasn’t the whole story. It wasn’t even close.

 

“You said you dated her after your other partners died…” she trailed off. Hoping the man would fill the blank.

 

Superman bobbed his head. “I… well… I was married.”

 

“Married? So you had a wife?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“And she died?”

 

“Well… she wasn’t my wife when she died.”

 

In disbelief. “You’re telling me someone divorced _Superman_?”

 

He smiled. “It was very amicable. We stayed best friends until she died.”

 

“Why did she leave you?”

 

“Well…” Superman looked to the side. “I think we both drifted apart when we worked out I couldn’t have children. Despite what she said when she was younger she wanted kids. She wanted the experience of being pregnant and having a family. I didn’t want to deny her that.”

 

“Did she? Have children, I mean.”

 

His gaze returned to her. Studied her. “Yes.”

 

“And you found Wonder Woman?”

 

“Not until years later.”

 

“Was there someone else in that time?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Who?” She asked.

 

Superman didn’t say anything. The silence went on for so long she considered breaking a reporter rule and interrupting it. Then… “Batman.”

 

She felt her eyes pop. “Batman?” As hot as the Wonder Woman headline was this was hotter. A lot hotter. Hot enough to get all the superhero historical societies to fall on the floor clutching their chests. “But… he… you…”

 

“It was a time when homosexuality was discriminated against,” Superman said carefully. “Which made things harder. But I think… I think if there was a single love of my life it would be him.”

 

Oh boy, that was it. That was the logline. _I think if there was a single love of my life it would be him_ with a picture of Superman and Batman from the archives _._ Yep. This was going to top a billion views. Easy.

 

“How did that happen?” She asked.

 

He shrugged. “How does anything like that happen? We were friends for years. He was there when I got married. He was there when I got divorced. I never knew he liked men until one day my shirt got dirty. I took it off and he told me it was distracting. I…” the man smiled. “I didn’t even click. Not then. Not until I was home, lying in bed, thinking about it. The next day I just asked him.”

 

“You asked him if he was gay?”

 

“I asked him on a date,” Superman corrected. “I didn’t care what the details were. I didn’t care if he was gay, bisexual, or anything else. I just realised I’d spent my life with this man and… I wanted to keep doing it. If he wanted that as well…”

 

“Did he say yes?” She all but interrupted.

 

Superman laughed. The first actually joyous laugh of the whole interview. “No. He never said anything. He just told me to come back later that night and when I did he had a candlelit dinner waiting.”

 

“He sounds so romantic,” she said with a grin, drinking in the visuals. Drinking in all her forthcoming views.

 

“Oh no,” Superman’s head shook. “It was his butl—father that had set up the dinner. _He_ was hopeless. He spent the entire time talking about work, and politics, and anything but what we were doing and why.”

 

“That sounds…”

 

“Perfect,” Superman gave her the word. “It was perfect. _He_ was perfect. You have no idea how amazing it was to realise that I had the bat out of his element. That he didn’t know what to say, or do. That, despite that, he wanted me enough to step out of his comfort zone and try. _Really_ try.”

 

“And you fell in love?”

 

“We were already in love,” he said. “I don’t know when I fell in love with that man but we had been in love for years before we both actually sat down and said it. I think that was why we never really dated. Never went through the honeymoon phase or anything like that. One day we were best friends and the next we were an old married couple. We already knew each other’s annoying habits, were very good at arguing, and I was crazy about his kids. It was…”

 

“Perfect,” she guessed.

 

Superman smiled. “He was the most perfectly imperfect man in the whole world… and utterly perfect for it. Even when he grew old he just grew more and more handsome. He would never believe me when I told him that – he was always self-conscious about the different rates at which we physically aged – but it was the truth. I remember him in his nineties. I remember thinking how absolutely amazing he looked. How beautiful his hands were. His skin. How wonderfully powerful his voice was. Even when he was an old man he could still growl out an order in the exact same voice he used when he was ordering the Justice League around. Even when he couldn’t see anymore he could still have me standing to attention before him with just a word. Even on the day he di—” Superman cut off abruptly. His face shivered. A flicker of pain. Agony. Grief.

 

“I’m sorry.”

 

“No,” Superman closed his eyes and composed himself. “Don’t be. He died hundreds of years ago. I have made peace with it.”

 

“How?” It felt like a grossly inappropriate question. Something a child would ask.

 

“Time,” Superman answered it anyway. “It might not feel like it but time does help. Diana was good too after a while.”

 

“Princess Diana?” Lorrie wanted to make sure. “Wonder Woman?”

 

“Yes,” Superman nodded. “Wonder Woman. We didn’t get together until… it must have been over a century later. She was much older than me in appearance by then. Not that I minded.” He looked down. “Like I said, we shared the same experiences. She’d also lost her partner to old age and while we both had worked through the worst of that grief there was… a peace in loving someone again. Especially someone who understood. Someone who wasn’t just sympathetic but… who _knew_.”

 

A silence fell.

 

Lorrie let it linger. Let Superman work through what he needed to.

 

“I didn’t love her as much as I did him,” he muttered. “And she knew that. She didn’t love me as much as she loved Steve. But that was okay. That was better. Neither of us wanted to experience love like that again. What we wanted was… companionship. That’s what we gave each other. That’s what we were to each other. It was… right… I think.”

 

Another silence.

 

Another long wait.

 

Lorrie sat through it. She wished she could claim it was purely journalistic integrity that was keeping her silent. That she was respecting his space and allowing the story to come naturally without prompting or probing. The truth was a part of her didn’t know what to say. A part of her was intrinsically aware how unworldly and inexperienced she was compared to him. How there was nothing in her past that could hold a candle up to what he was describing. Even if there was she didn’t know how sharing it could possibly help. Not in the face of such an old and accepted scar.

 

When he first said he had been in a relationship with Wonder Woman she imagined gods kissing on cloud tops. She imagined the star spangled heroes embracing after battle. She imagined capes and hair and wind and stars. Now she imagined two people. She imagined a life. She imagined a peace.

 

Not perfect but… enough.

 

This time, when Superman spoke again, his voice was firmer. Most composed. “I suppose it is time to declassify a lot of this. It is history now. Literally. I would tell you my old secret identity but… maybe in another couple of hundred years. There is an awful lot that can be inferred from my original human name.”

 

“The first Batman’s identity?” She guessed.

 

“Perhaps… though I don’t know. He was secretive old bat right to the end. I doubt anyone outside our immediate families ever knew we were together. I don’t know if there would be any record of it surviving today. We never married. Never officially lived together.” A deep breath. “You _would_ however be able to find out the name of the woman I married. While I don’t think she would mind what people might say about her so long after her death I would rather she be remembered for her work not as Superman’s ex-wife.”

 

Softly. “I can understand that.”

 

He inclined his head in thanks.

 

“So…” she studied him. “You don’t go by your original human name anymore? Not even your first name?”

 

He looked at her with a soft but unapologetic sadness. The honesty of that expression somehow both childlike and ancient. “No. There is no one left who remembers my human name. I am Superman now. Kal-El to a few.”

 

“You could tell people your human name,” she blurted out. “You could meet someone in a bar and be like ‘hello, my name is blank’. That’s all you have to say and then someone would be calling you by your real name again.” The name that Batman once used.

 

He studied her. “That’s true.”

 

She thought that was all he was going to say. She thought that was it. Then, slowly, he reached out and turned off the recorder. For a heart stopping moment nothing happened. No one moved. Then… “Hello,” Superman said. “My name is Clark.”

 

Her heart flew up into her mouth. He was trusting her? Why was he trusting her? Why was he telling her this? Did he not care? Was he that starved of human contact that he was throwing such a vital piece of information into her hands unguarded? Information she could, if she wanted to, put in the morning news. _Superman’s name is Clark!_ How many Clarks lived in Metropolis in the 2010s? How many fit Superman’s description? How hard would it really be to find out who he used to be now? “Hello Clark,” she rasped. “I… I’m Lorrie.”

 

“Ms Lane.”

 

“I prefer Lorrie.”

 

“I would still rather call you Ms Lane.”

 

She made a face and he grinned.

 

It was an odd grin. Like he was laughing at some kind of inside joke. One she wasn’t a part of.

 

“You’re not what I expected,” she admitted as he turned the recorder back on.

 

“I get that a lot.”

 

“You know,” she licked her lips, “people are going to say you, Batman, and Wonder Woman had a threesome. It’s not true but that’s what the headlines are going to say. Not in the Daily Planet but in other places. They’ll say you had a threesome. They’ll say it was a love triangle. Someone will probably say the whole first generation Justice League were poly and boning each other.”

 

“Hm. Wally would have loved that.”

 

“Wally?” She leant forward. Most of the first and second generation Justice League’s identities were now known… but not all. Who was Wally? Was he Batman? Could Batman really be a Wally? How many Wallys could have lived in Gotham in the 2010s? “You’re giving a lot away, Superman.”

 

The man looked amused. “Not as much as you think, Ms Lane.” There was no cruelty or patronisation in his tone. If anything he sounded happy.

 

She hoped that were true.

 

It hadn’t worried her – this man’s happiness – when she first saw him catch someone falling from a hover car crash when she was ten years old. It hadn’t crossed her mind when, moments earlier, he looked at the table and described what an atom looked like. But then she’d realised, under it all and despite his DNA, he was human too. She wasn’t sure when that realisation happened. Probably when he talked about Batman and smiled – small and soft – like he couldn’t keep the expression off his face.

 

Yes… probably then.

 

Superman stood. “I have to go.”

 

“You do?”

 

“Yes. A space craft is in distress.”

 

“Oh…”

 

He looked at her. “I could come back if…?”

 

“No no,” she waved him away. “I have more than enough.” Though she regretted not asking the more serious questions now. She always assumed Superman was a fairly simple character. A square jawed American hero who wore a cape and bounced bullets off his chin. The perfect person to write a glorified gossip piece on.

 

Now she wished she’d asked him what he thought about the current political climate, what it was like to live long enough to see the patterns in humankind, and what exactly did he mean when he said some atoms looked different even though they were the same element?

 

“Until next time, Ms Lane.”

 

“Wait! Can you…”

 

He vanished in a rush of air.

 

She sat for a moment, stunned by his sudden departure. Then… slowly… she reached out and turned off her recorder. It would require some editing and some writing – perhaps some archive photos of the three superheroes together – to really make it pop but otherwise it would sell itself. Superman’s love life. Superman’s secret scandalous affair. Superman’s parade of lovers.

 

Historical societies would drink it up, the general public would chuckle about it for a week or two, and someone somewhere will call it a conspiracy.

 

She supposed she would think of it as a small piece of Clark’s story. Perhaps the only piece she would ever have the privilege of hearing.

 

She hoped not. She hoped he would talk to her again. She hoped that – by keeping his name secret – he would feel compelled to trust her with more. Perhaps not things that she would ever publish. Perhaps not things that were even newsworthy. But despite his forthrightness he was an enigma still… and she never liked to end anything with a question mark.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> “Everyone who lives long enough to love deeply will experience great losses. Don't let fear of loss, or the losses themselves, take away your ability to enjoy the wonderful life that is yours.”  
> ― Barbara "Cutie" Cooper, Fall in Love for Life: Inspiration from a 73-Year Marriage


End file.
